06 March, 2010

 I've just gone through one of those experiences you only ever have one shot at living - my brother's wedding.  It's really amazing at how far I've come with my brother in just a year's span.  One year ago today, my relationship with him was no stranger or familiar than it was maybe 5 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago.

My brother was always a mysterious guy, and I bet I owe a lot of my own mysteriousness and reclusiveness to what I copied off of him growing up.  There was once a time when I would have said I was close to my brother, but that time is long off.  I remember the first time Kinsey went off for a whole winter break to the States without me - I cried and my parents laughed.  They said "형이 있을떼는 그렇게 싸우고, 이제 형이 가니까 울어?"  And of course I cried harder because my parents were making fun of me.  

I wouldn't say my family is poor, but I would deny my family was by any means rich.  I tell my American friends I lived in a tiny rented 빌라 (which I learned later was not the same as a "villa") in an alley I'd struggle to describe to you.  In that small apartment, my brother and I would shoot BB guns at each other when my parents were away (one hit me square in the eye), we'd physically fight for fun (I broke his pinky finger) and we'd even play baseball with a plastic ball and bat - each "base" was a piece of furniture 2 feet apart in the living room.  Then my brother entered high school, and I began to forget who he really was.  I saw very little of him for those 4 years.

To some extent, I was eternally jealous of my brother.  I got into a lot of trouble growing up, and my behavior worried my parents to no small end.  I envied how my brother could laugh his way past any punishment.  There were even times after I fought with my brother that I relished telling my parents what he did when they came home, but invariably, they laughed when he laughed, and I received the scolding of a lifetime.  After a while, I realize I must have subconsciously begun to imitate my brother - I thought that if I was more like him, I could laugh my way through punishments, and if I were more like him, maybe my parents would love me more like the way they did him.  And still, I did not know my brother.

Last summer, I met his fiancee in Korea.  If I could have imagined my brother with someone, it would not have been a missionary kid from Sri Lanka more fluent in Korean than she was in English.  And yet, wouldn't you know it, they were perfect for each other.  That very first night I met her, I felt comfortable enough to ask Hana to help me grow closer with my brother and draw our family together, and she promised me she would.  And because of that promise, because of Hana, 7 months later, Kinsey is still a mystery, but he is no longer a stranger to me.  He is my brother, and I can say I love him.

Congratulations 형, 누나.  오래오래 행복하게 사세요.

Desert of This

I tread lightly upon these, the sands of despair

Lest I wake up the demons that slumber around,

Tired from the feast of their most recent fare,

The last poor soul’s stumbling they’d found.

The winds desperately destroy what my feet create

Until I forget how far I’ve come, if at all.

The sun dries me with thirst I barely sate

With tears demanded by fear’s stifling pall.

Still I know from the screams of my legs

And the growing insanity of my mind,

If I keep one foot ahead as the other begs,

I’m moving somewhere , just moving blind.

And in the dark recesses of my heart,

As the answer to my most urgent wish,

A light shines that these sands cannot part

To walk with me in the desert of this,

The desert of loneliness where soon I can rise

To walk hand in hand with Him to paradise

everything is meaningless

We're reading through Ecclesiastes in small group right now.  The main theme: everything is meaningless.  Under the sun, everything is meaningless.

And doesn't life really feel that way?  We wake up, we do whatever we do, and by the end of the day, we sleep for another day.  If life is one of the most precious gifts given us, then why do we find that days blur together?  How come MOST days of my life are forgettable?  I might as well have been asleep for half my life for all I got out of it...right?  I love God, and I know God loves me, but too often, and all the more recently, that realization doesn't seem to be epic enough to answer the ultimate question of life: "how do i find meaning in it?"

Today, some profound things were uttered, and I began to understand how to answer that question.  A brother shared this passage:

"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little"

Paul knew the answer.  It will be an ongoing lesson to learn how to serve God in trials and through the most difficult of situations; yet I've found that I'm most in danger not when I am suffering, but when I am thriving.  I am closer to knowing how to live on almost nothing than I am in knowing how to live with everything.  And now, don't I have everything?  I have people to talk to, more food than I can eat that I have to store things for later and keep leftovers, a bed with several layers to keep me warm, movies and books to keep me entertained, the Bible to read and believers with whom to fellowship with.  If I keep studying and follow a program already laid out before me, then I will be a respected doctor with a salary.  And what is my greatest problem?  that I am bored.

And for now, the answer I have come up with is that I lack compassion.  In my abundance, I am not giving.  In my everything, I ignore those with nothing.  Instead, my first thought is study.  When 30 minutes pass by, I think to myself "that was 30 minutes I could have studied.  or at least worked out."  I study and forget to pray.    Compassion.  There is a small section in Matthew, a prelude to where Jesus sends out the Twelve.  It reads:

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few..'"

Jesus had compassion everyday for those he walked amongst.  Who am I amongst?  I don't walk among the hungry in Ethiopia or the oppressed in Indonesia.  For now, I walk among secular medical students - but I have no compassion for them.  Rather, the temptation to live a secular lifestyle, reinforced by the demands and motivations of the medical profession keep me actively trying to distance myself.  And so, I don't have compassion.  and I don't know how to live on a full stomach.  and I am bored, and I question the meaning of each of my days.

The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

Doritos

I bought some doritos today.  The Blazin' Buffalo & Ranch kind.  They say that smell and taste are the most closely linked senses to memory (and now thanks to medical school, I know what tracts make this true), but as I was eating those Doritos, I had some major flashbacks.

Back when I was growing up in Korea, American food was RARE.  Instead of skittles, I had these misshapen, slightly off-tasting Korean copies (Unfortunately, I cant remember the name).  Instead of m&m's, I ate chocolate covered 해바라기씨 (sunflower seeds).  Fruit rollups?  Gushers?  Get out of here, every blue moon, someone would bring some from their vacation in the States and they were everybody's best friends for all of the 30 minutes their stash lasted.  I remember one time, I got punked into getting a free fruit-by-the-foot if I ate some "candy" this guy gave me.  Turns out the candy was some bitter bitter medicine that numbed my taste buds and I couldn't taste the fruit-by-the-foot at all.  Lucky for that person I don't remember who it was.

Yet there was a way I could eat Doritos.  Sometimes, I could get on the American Base (gate 52!) and persuade the clerk to sell me candy without a base pass.  Sometimes.  Then after a point, I must have begun looking too much like a terrorist to pull it off.  No more Doritos.  Compared with the tiny 500W bags of korean chips I could get, those humongous $2.50 Doritos bags were a kid's dream come true.  I would love eating them with my fingers and then licking my fingers clean - sometimes it seemed that the chips themselves were just a way I could get to licking my fingers.

When I was feeling down, my mom would make an extra trip out to the base to get me the only New York style pizza you could find in Seoul - Anthony's Pizza on the base.  She'd get me a fresh box of pizza and the only Taco Bell in the entire city - on the South Post.  I'd sit at home until she'd call me, then I'd come out and help her balance the big Taco Bell cup on the pizza box as we climbed the stairs.

Life was simpler as a child - I think I felt America was such a bigger place than Korea, with much better snacks, more freedom and more opportunity.  Every other summer, I'd go to America and spend an entire day sitting in the Barnes and Noble, catching up on my Redwall series and browsing through the comics.  Then we'd get our annual Panda Express at the mall before I picked up my one Nintendo game that would last me the rest of the year until I came back to the States.  and I was happy.

Now with everything that I wanted as a child, I'm living the paradox of wanting to return to being a child.  I don't think its a matter of the grass being greener on the other side.  I've seen a lot more of the world, and I've realized that there's fewer things as precious as the childhood I spent growing up in Korea, between two worlds, and between Doritos.

February 2010

It's already February of 2010.  I find one of life's biggest ironies in just how much we can't wait for time to fly faster as kids, then when we're adults we only wish for a way to turn back time.  What sparks that ironical transition?  I guess I haven't experienced life enough to say for certain.  Maybe right now I'm living that transition - a part of me wishes to return to halcyon college; another part of me can't wait until I'm a resident.  Or maybe it's just the present at the moment that I'm having a hard time biding by.

Where was I 10 years ago?  2000.  Wrapping up 8th grade year.  That year actually signifies very little in my life beyond discipleship with Myong.  It was probably my first time really studying the Bible as something of substance outside of sunday school.  We spent all of 6 months studying the book of James - something of my time in that Bible Study gripped me, and I believe it to be the time I first became a real Christian.  As I think upon it now, I think that finding some small semblance of community in that discipleship group after a socially rough past 2 years may have contributed a lot to my hunger for affirmation in God, and my finding Him in the book of James.

For some reason, I remember sitting in on a high school concert and asking Julian, do you think you'll do Psalms next year?  And that very first morning psalms of 2008, my first week as a high school freshman, I stepped into the cave and sat down on the first of many mornings with Mr. Raatz and my Psalms upperclassmen.  Psalms was a continuation of the community I felt a little of from 8th grade.  The smelly carpet, the pictures of Jazz Band, AGAPE, I love you Charlie Brown, Fiddler on the Roof lining the walls, the closets of mysterious violins left overnights - I found much comfort and encouragement among them over the next three years.

But 10 years ago.  I didn't think about my career - I didn't think about being a missionary, a doctor, a pastor. I sought friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation.  And I waited on God.  and God was faithful.  Today, I seek much the same things.  I seek friendship, social acceptance, emotional affirmation - I guess now I would call this community.  God was faithful.  I believe He is faithful still - I will wait on God, be it 2000, 2010 or 2050.

골목길

These kinds of alleys were very familiar to me.  In the neighborhood where I grew up, like most residences, my home was really in an indescribable location.  Street numbers meant nothing in a neighborhood assembled upon a hillside, fed by the arboreal arteries that were these alleyways.  How do you get to my house?  The question I had was, "How do you not get there?" It seemed all the million paths I knew all eventually led to my house.

I never really took the school bus as I got older.  I took public transportation, and to get to the nearest subway stop, I'd walk for twenty five minutes down and up this small mountain, navigating these tiny streets and making seemingly arbitrary turns to get to them - I have one story for each one of those tiny streets, explaining how I discovered the secret destinations those alleys held.  I came home past 8pm everyday - these ugly paths hidden between houses, themselves hidden by others, illuminated by the yellow light of lampposts, littered with cigarette butts and uneven bumps, these became an avenue of solace for me.  I was sheltered by the walls around me, comforted by my ability to disappear forever in the heart of a sprawling metropolis to appear whenever I wanted.

When people are feeling home-sick, are in a strange and cold environment, they know they want to go home.  For me, these alleys mean home - "which one of these don't eventually lead me home?"






미국으로 이사온후로, 서울이 많이 그리웠다.  하지만, 자신에게도 의외였지많서도, 내가 제일 보고싶어했던것은 골목길이였다.  어느 겨울밤, 난 또 서울의 골목길을 다시 걷고싶다 - 어렸을떼 느껴젔던 위안을, 이렇게 바빠지고 다 자란 나는 다시 알고싶다.

Old Worship Team reflections

In my google documents history, I found a very nondescript file labeled Fall Quarter WT Reflections, and in it I found 4 entries I had apparently written the fall quarter of Senior year. I thought I'd put them here. It's funny how all those things I had expressed a couple years ago still resonates so strongly with me today, amidst such different circumstances.

Part 1

Mm. Interesting. I guess more than ever I feel as I leave the college bubble, that for the first time, the “battle” of living a counter-cultural life in this spiritual warzone makes sense. In the back of my mind, every time I encountered this analogy I understood it as applicable while perhaps entertaining the notion that it was an exaggeration for my life. Yet these past few months have seen me challenged with things that outstripped the mere temptations of my past – stealing, lying, honoring. I found myself dealing with issues of premarital sex, of seriously desiring a life of comfort and prosperity and rejecting a calling to live among the impoverished, of wanting to withdraw into my own ethnic circles and live in ignorance. And during these moments, I found myself for the first time seriously wondering if God was real. Yet, while these moments brought me into some of my darkest fear, that perhaps the faith I thought I had amounted to nothing, because they could so easily be shaken in such a short amount of time, I can look back on my life, and my life as it is today, and be blessed, because I can tell you of how God does not stand for me to waste His time. I know that there are times that God is patient with us as we veer in and out of the path He calls us to, and He waits for us to snap out of our misguided ways and He awaits us with outstretched arms a la the Prodigal Son, but in my life, so many times I feel that God is more the shepherd with the lost sheep, that he actively goes out to get me and slaps me really hard if need be for me to come back to my senses. I can almost feel God at these moments telling me, “Eugene, my plans are too great for you to be wasting my time, so wake up and let me use you.” I guess my greatest fears now, is fear of loss as I face the future. I’m really not worried about my future, in any kind of worry like I used to have about things – but sometimes when I think about my future, I’m afraid of losing things – I’m afraid of losing my family one day, I’m afraid of not having friends, I’m afraid of one day not being able to remember what it’s like to live in Korea…I’m afraid I’m preparing myself for a lifestyle I want to be able to handle, but I won’t be strong enough to survive. Yet my one reassuring thought amidst all this, is that God has revealed to me that He guides us in steps, only one at a time, without revealing to us our final destination, and the strength He provides is only enough to get us to that next step. So as it stands, I won’t be able to survive the life I will have in the future with the strength I have now – only enough for one day, one hour, one minute of my life – and that’s how we continue to walk without growing faint, run and not be weary, and sometimes we’ll soar on wings like eagles. I don’t worry like I used to, but often to escape my fears, I’ll choose not to think about things – I wish to one day be able to think about my future, to hear about the successes of medical students like me, to be confronted with what may lie ahead and NOT assume that future is mine, and know JOY without ignorance.

Part 2

I guess I’ve felt really inadequate this past quarter. I started out this summer really disappointed at how little vision team developed my initial idea of a prayer guide from way back in March and how little I had to start out with. I pushed on despite vision team’s warnings with a non-chapter specific prayer group, which ultimately fell apart because the dedicated leaders of IV in all 5 chapters are too over-taxed as it is. So I broke the group apart near the end of the quarter – I’m wondering how to lead a chapter in prayer, and how anything I do can make a lasting difference beyond this one school year. Barely anyone knows I’m the prayer ministry leader for MEIV and it discourages me that our weekly chapter meetings are by necessity during the daytime, when I have class. As a worship team member, I enjoy being on the team immensely. I wanted to grow musically, which I feel I am doing slowly, and I wanted to grow in my understanding of worship, which I also am doing slowly – my most memorable moment has to have been when I worshiped in Korean this quarter. Yet I feel inadequate, being the least musically able of the group, and often it doesn’t matter, though at times I’m reminded of this. I was reminded during Christmas LG, being the only member of the WT besides Rachel not to have participated – I know these thoughts are wrong and sometimes amount to nothing beyond selfishness, but accumulated, give me cause to stop and think about my continued role as a leader in MEIV – I know I shouldn’t limit God by what I perceive are my limitations, but I don’t know how to prioritize my two leadership calls, especially when I don’t know how to proceed at all with the former. I need guidance.

Part 3

What I think about from time to time is the flaky nature of the Christian commitment, especially in Asian-Americans. I know so many of my brothers and sisters from high school who seemed so on-fire, just die away when they came to college. I know so many more still of those that I know from college will go on to wither away after graduation. I know a big part of it has to do with the amount of Christian immersion we experience growing up, where our closest friends may be from church or IV and where in the workplace, these social surroundings change. Yet it doesn’t really explain everything. We’re so sure of our faith sometimes, but before we know it, we just care less and less, or the things we were so on fire for just seem to mean less and less, until before we know it the days have blurred so much together that we’re old. More and more, it seems less and less unlikely that after I graduate, this could perhaps be true of me. How do we keep our faith from seeming more and more childish as we enter the American workforce, and keep our ideals from the jadedness that is to follow? Find a good church? I just talked to a friend who works most on Sundays and can’t afford to go to church as a first year restaurant manager. Strong disciplines in prayer and bible study? Without community, these things are infinitely harder and much less rewarding than they were before. I don’t want to wait until I’m old enough to actually be living with the impoverished and being reminded every day of my choice to see and work against injustice for my faith to make more sense again. I want my faith to be stronger years later, when I’m drowsy with sleep competing with the top students of the nation for scores in medical school, or vying for a residency in the workforce as they are now. How?

Part 4

I love the worship team. I look forward to every Wednesday when I get to go down to Parkes to practice and lead with you guys. At the core of it, for me it’s a lot of fun and I think it should be. Bible study leading for me was fun last year, and so it grants me so much peace to reconcile what I’m doing with something that resonates so intimately with who I am. I love what we discuss at meetings, and I love how we’re pretty comfortable with each other and it’s only been a quarter. I love that everyone has a different personality and things are always going to be different with just one person missing – I hope. I want to see some of the stuff we talked about happening – I want to see the singing on the street, singing on the El, the body worship, the drawing – all that stuff we talked about. I fear we’ll be as busy next quarter with things as we were this past quarter and these things’ll be pushed to next year, or we’ll do them in a wishy-washy way if at all. I want to see the Winterfest/Cedar-ish chapter meetings for large group like we discussed, Barney and Phil, where things are relaxed and people discuss the vision and things together and it doesn’t matter who’s a leaders or who’s not. While I love the songs we sing, I’d love to branch out from the kinds of songs we do – the type that’s becoming classic MEIV. Maybe more traditional, maybe something more exotic – I feel we sing Te Alabare or Montana too often, and I know a little bit of it has to be that it’s logistically easier to repeat songs with some sets, particularly sets with new pieces. But it’s been very good. Lastly, I’d love to do a prayer concert again soon, but with elements of 05-06 Concert, where we had pure performance pieces. It’d be an opportunity to perform Christian pieces that are not as conducive to joint sing-along but still provide a powerful worship experience. There are many pieces I could suggest for those.

Prayer Requests – well. All this is me in a nutshell, maybe more dramatic than it really is, but you can garner hours of prayer from this . “Prayer Requests” often seem so fleeting because they’re already pre-processed and pre-packaged for us and we don’t have to think as much. But pray for my parents – for them to find God, for them to be healthy, for them to stop stressing and taxing themselves – for them to know Joy, Peace, and Rest in Him. Soon.